Climate Change Glossary

	Term	Description
Today's Featured Article3/2011
Science of Climate Change
SRES	IPCC
Roughness length
Regional Climate Modelling	GCM RCM Downscaling
Projections of Future Changes in Climate	Anthropogenic SRES
Positive feedback		When a change in a variable occurs in a system which exhibits positive feedback, the system responds by changing that variable even more in the same direction
Planetary albedo
North atlantic ossilation
Medieval Warm Period	Little Ice Age
Little Ice Age	Medieval Warm Period
Latent heat flux
Impacts of Climate Change	Anthropogenic Cryosphere
IPCC
Hydrosphere		A hydrosphere in physical geography describes the combined mass of water found on, under, and over the surface of a planet.
Hydrological cycle
Holocene Period	Interglacial Pleistocene
Geosphere		is often used to refer to the densest parts of Earth, which consist mostly of rock and regolith. The geosphere consists of the inside of the Earth or other planets or bodies
Educational Portal
Downscaling
Cryosphere		The cryosphere is the term which collectively describes the portions of the Earth’s surface where water is in solid form, including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover, glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost). Thus there is a wide overlap with the hydrosphere
Climate up to Present Day	CH4 Little Ice Age Stadial Interglacials Milankovitch cycles Holocene Megathermal Hypsithermal Holocene Climatic Optimum Climate forcings Medieval Warm Period Anthropogenic Gulf Stream Holocene Period
Climate forcings
Climate Variability	Climate forcings Albedo Tropopause Radiative Forcing
Climate Models	Anthropogenic Climate forcings
Climate Change and its Drivers	Carbon Dioxide Atmospheric window Planetary albedo Latent heat flux Roughness length Hydrological cycle Positive feedback Climate forcings Carbon sink Geosphere Biosphere Cryosphere Hydrosphere
Climate Change Glossary
Carbon sink
Carbon Dioxide		A Chemical that is formed by the fusion of Oxygen and Carbon molecules that help trap heat in the atmosphere and is known as Greehouse Gas
Biosphere		is the global sum of all ecosystems. A closed (apart from solar and cosmic radiation) and self-regulating system From the broadest point of view, the biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere.
Atmospheric window
Anthropogenic		Climate activity induced by human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels that increase the emissions of Carbon Dioxide
An Introduction to the Science of Climate Change	Epistemic uncertainty Aleatoric Positive feedback Sulphate Carbon Dioxide Anthropogenic
Aleatoric		The incorporation of chance into the process of creation. The word derives from the Latin word alea, the rolling of dice.

• Anthropogenic Climate Change - Changes to the climate caused by human influence. Such as burning fossil fuels causing emissions of Carbon Dioxide